Travel Tip 10- Turn a T-Shirt into Shorts

Turn a T-Shirt into Shorts- Travel Tip #10

This travel tip comes from the highly resourceful nomad Wanderjahr Jill. Read on, and you will be sure to learn how to turn a t-shirt into a pair of shorts. I cannot predict when you will need to use this tip, but, I must say, there will come a day when you look into your rucksack and realize that your articles of clothing are not appropriately diverse to fully clothe a human body. For sometimes on the Road you just have a few too many t-shirts and not enough shorts, sometimes the clothes in your bag just do not match the climate, and sometimes you just need a change.

This travel tip is about making use of what have. This tip is about getting your self out of a jam.

This tip is about how to turn a t-shirt into a pair of shorts:

First, place the t-shirt on a flat surface and cut the sleeves off along the seams.

Take the sleeves and cut them along their seam so that they are flat pieces of fabric rather than “rings.” Place them on top of each other and off to the side.

Cut the top of the t-shirt along the seams like in the photo.

Lay your parts in front of you. You will use all of this fabric.

Position cut up t-shirt upside down so that they look like shorts. The top of the t-shirt is now the bottom of the shorts. The bottom of the t-shirt is now the top of the shorts.

Cut the “crotch” of the shorts up approx. four inches. Be sure to leave room for your butt. May want to measure up against yourself.

Now take the two pieces of fabric from the t-shirt sleeves and sew them together at the short edge. Refer to photos.

Now that the two t-shirt sleeve fabrics are sewn together you can put them inside of the “shorts” with the sewn seam of the sleeves as the center crotch of the shorts.

Sew down the edges so that it looks like the above photo. Do this on both sides of the shorts. The t-shirt sleeves are now the inside crotch area of the shorts.

You have now just made a t-shirt into a pair of shorts. Now it is time to add a drawstring!

To make a drawstring use an old piece of cord, string, or shoelace and poke two holes into the natural seam of the old t-shirt.

Now trim up any loose ends and hem the bottom legs of the shorts and you are finished.

There you go, Travel Tip #10- How to turn a t-shirt into shorts. As always, take this travel tip or leave it.

Walk Slow,

Wade
www.VagabondJourney.com

Copan Expat Barroom Wisdom

Copan Expat Barroom Wisdom

“My friends say, ‘Quinn how do you travel the world? How do you do it?’”
“I do it because I want to do it.”
- Red the Copan expat

In Copan, they think that I do not have any huevos. I like orange juice. I go out to the local expat bar on Friday night, and I only drink orange juice. My drinks receive the hairy eyeball from the entire assemblage expat lifestyle drunks, as they sit innocently on the table in front of me like some bastard pariah child, but I like them. I also like going out at night, having fun, and then being able to wake up at 7AM with a clear head and a disposition to enjoy the beautiful Saturday day. But, sometimes, in any barroom, from the mouth of any washed out drunk, there is a chance that pure wisdom could seep into your ears amid all of the slag.

The man's name was Red, or, that is what I call him. He has a predisposed red complexion that only gets redder as he gets drunker. His face gets really red a lot. I think he gets drunk every single night. Red is a little old. He is around the age where men from the USA and Europe break down in their native lands and become ex-pats in some far flung tropical nowhere. His red, drunk face is wrinkly, he wears button up shirts that are about as memberable as wall paper, and equally un-astonishing khaki pants. His head is round like a ball, his body is round like a bigger ball. The properly stationed and well-thinking-about-themselves foreigners in Copan sometimes try to avoid Red. They think that he has the propensity for trapping people in long drawn, incoherent bar talk. He does. Red is the kind of man who can empty a room full of people simply by entering. But I like him. And I like his stories.

He also says that he makes $90,000 a year exporting stupid corn husk dolls from Honduras to the USA. He very well may, but I do not really know. When my ears are open to stories I choose not to filter out the smoke in fear of smothering the fire.

“How do you make money?” Red rhetorically questioned. “You use your imagination.”

I have a biting suspicion that Red knows how large the world is.

He then began telling the basics of small time import-export that had the air of being 90% smoke, but I know that what he said had a 10% morsel of wisdom tucked deep into it. That 10% could keep a man on the run for a lifetime. “When you travel, look at the street artisan’s crafts,” he began, “look for something that you have never seen before. “Most of the stuff is junk and it is rare that you find original stuff, but when you do buy it.” He then went on to tell me how much money I could make off of this. His idea is not original, but from the impressions of the other expats at the bar who know Red better than I, I can safely assume that he actually does this. This is where the wisdom is hidden: Red really does travel around Central America just looking for junk to sell on Ebay. He is a man with inertia and energy. He makes his own bed.

A man with inertia hardly even needs an original, or even a good, idea to make a living. He just needs to do it.

I have met few people in this world who are driven by hefty doses inertia. In my opinion, they are far more gifted than the genius scholar, the attractive lady killer, the sexy dame, or the riotous friend. I have witnessed savants waste their talents with dead-end jobs, beautiful people wasting away their looks in petty misery, and truly good people unable to break themselves out of the grind of day-to-day existence.

But a person with inertia DOES. A person with inertia will find a way to break through any obstacle; wall, barrier, or blockade have no lasting effect against shear determination and the drive to give it life. Inertia will bang its head against any barrier, chisel away at it, try to jump over it, or, failing all else, come up with some concocted scheme of propelling itself to the other side.

I believe that inertia is just the ability to find a way. No matter what.

Given this, I think that all of the chips usually have a habit of falling into place.

Dreams are for the chasing, not just for the dreaming.

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Copan Ruinas, Honduras
March 29, 2008

To Guatemala from Honduras

To Guatemala from Honduras

Today was my last day of working at Copan, my last day of hanging out with the archaeologist campensinos, unearthing the Maya, and dreaming my way through the stone chiseled corridors and byways of a truly ancient city. I have learned much from this archaeology project - chalked up another mark on the old curriculum vitae - but it is time to be moving on. I offered my farewells to the cowboy hat wearing campesinos at the site, shook hands, got a little choked up, and made my final bows to good old Copan. For Guatemala calls.

As well as a meeting with the Hobo Traveler.

Andy made Antigua yesterday. I am excited to cross his path.

The world turns, times change, but rivers still run to the sea. Guatemala is the place where I may soon meet the Hobo Traveler.

I am thinking over the ways that I can get from Copan to Antigua. The Guatemala border is only 12 km from where I am standing, and I think that Antigua is only a few hours beyond that. I am close. There are tourist shuttle buses that leave from Copan and go directly to Antigua which I could hop for $12. Or I could go my usually route and take the local bus and maybe keep a few more dollars safe inside my pocket. Though it is looking like this route is full of potholes, as I will probably have to transfer local buses twice before getting to Antigua. The bus from Copan goes to the border, where I will probably have to catch another bus to Guatemala City, and then another bus from there before getting to Antigua.

I am thinking that it may be almost the same price and less of a hassle to just ride the $12 tourist shuttle rather than three different local buses. I will have to look into this. If I can get a local bus to Antigua from the Honduran border then I will definitely take it, as it is usually a far more interesting ride. I also enjoy being able to ride out the day without being able to fully understand what my fellow bus mates are saying. But if it would be silly to not take the direct shuttle - if the locals will cost about the same - I will pack up my pride and pile in with the rest of the khaki-clad tourists for the joy ride to Antigua. I am hoping for a straight running local bus, but from looking at the maps, I do not think that this is a possibility.

I have no need to go to Guatemala City, even if it is just to change buses.

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Copan Ruinas, Honduras
March 28, 2008

Writing for Magazines and Newspapers

The Writing Life and the Struggle for Nickels and Dimes

“Put writing in your heart. Thus you may protect yourself from any kind of labour.” -Egyptian scribe to his son 2400 BC.

This is the idea. To find a way to write for my food. By any means necessary. But I have found that to do so means working long hours for a pittance, and struggling for my nickels and dimes. I almost feel like a beggar. But I have been publishing in small-time magazines, and getting paid small-time money. I do not complain, for at least it is something. I am rather pleased with myself, in fact. My mom is happy with me too.

I do not mind slaving away for a few days researching, interviewing, and assembling a story that will only make me $50. I am actually very happy to receive the $50 for this effort. I think that I am well paid. I am satisfied. I am having fun. I do not need anything more.

But maybe I am coming to the point where I need to take things to the next level. Maybe I should try getting published in the medium-time magazines? Maybe I should take some entry level position at some newspaper?

No. I do not think that I want to do that to myself. I write for fun. I am not sure if I wish to write for money. I do not like dodging the heavy hands of editors. I imagining the garbage that I would have to pump out if I ran the usual route of journalism or travel writing; if I were to find a regular job in these professions.

I like what I am doing. I like writing these little essays on Song of the Open Road, I love working on the projects that the Hobo Traveler gives me, I really dig writing magazine articles for Dan, I like putting up pages on Vagabond Journey, I have fun making maps for Vagabond Fieldnotes, I almost even enjoy putting up photos on Traveler Photographs.com - well, almost. This is a good life that I am leading. I wander, I write about what I wish, I do not have to worry about how much money I make . . . because I make so little money that it is a negligible issue.

No, I do not think that I want to make writing into a real job. I like abusing grammar and making up my own words far too much to go the route of the stiff collar. I like writing how I speak. I like writing for fun.

The writing life is fun. I care not if I ever make a dime at this.

I also don’t read magazines or newspapers because I think that they are junk. Not all, but most. I just cannot bring myself to pick up a magazine and read it. I think that the modern journalism format is silly, as articles in popular magazines seem to only be bridges to span the gap between advertisements. Modern travel journalism is even more ridiculous - I am a vendor of stories, of tall tales, not vacations. It leaves a sticky lump in my throat to say this, but I think of popular journalism as some hokey form of mill writing. Goon writing. Assembly line writing. It is just writing into frames, the author does not even need to attach his name to a piece because it is run through a weeding-out process to kill any twist of originality. For some reason magazine articles are all made to sound the same. They could all be written my the same person for all I know; or the same machine. I do not want to be separated from my words. I like my words.

I was talking with a former political corespondent for the Seattle Times, or some such newspaper, at the expat hangout in Copan Ruinas a few days ago. He talked about ‘his beat,’ about the stories he was responsible for covering. I bored myself ragged listening to the poor guy. From the way he talked I momentarily thought his words were going to be interesting, but, upon further inquiry, I realized that his job was to write the same article over and over again. Man, that had to be a really, really interesting article ?

Take a form article, change a few words, publish, get paid, talk the talk about your ‘beat.’ Not bad. Maybe I try this someday when I get stuck in the mud.

I would make a mess of it, I know.

But I do like making messes.

I also like struggling for my nickels and dimes. The writing life.

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Copan Ruinas, Honduras
March 27, 2008

Tourist Charity and Street Children

Tourist Charity and Street Children

I walked to the internet café tonight. They were closed. Their front gate was securely fastened shut with a steel chain and a big strong padlock; the lights inside were off. In futility, I shook the gate a few times for no good measure. The sign on the door read that they close at 10PM. It was 7PM. I suppose the owner just had better things to be doing than running his business. Businesses in Latin America only pretend that they run on a time clock like other places in the world, but in reality, a place is open only when the workers feel like working. Tonight, I suppose the internet café did not feel like working. I cannot blame them.

On my disgruntled walk home I came upon two blond 20 year old American girls talking with a little shoe-less Honduran boy under the dark eve of a street-side doorway. The kids in this town are not too bad, they don’t really ask foreigners for money, and, from all apparent conditions, they do not need to. They are well fed, clothed, and their only disparity seems to be that they are, perhaps, just a little bored. So they ply the streets looking for fun. Sometimes foreigners mistake them for beggars. Sometimes they pretend to be beggars. I know that they are not, for they live right down the street from me.

As I walked by the girls who had accosted this little boy in a dark street, I could not help but wondered if he got caught trying to nick something from them. I would not blame him for trying. But no, this was not the case. As I approached one of the girls asked if I spoke English. I said yes. Then she asked if I spoke Spanish. I said enough. I looked down at the boy. He looked confused and a little nervous. I wondered what was going on. The girls then asked me if I could ask him what restaurant he wanted to eat dinner at.

These two strapping tourist were trying to save the world by taking a boy who they think is a pariah street child out to a big expensive meal at a foreigner restaurant. The Honduran boy looked frightened.

Oh brother. Against my better judgement, I sucked it up and asked the kid where he wanted to eat, figuring that it would be the easiest way to remove myself from being an accessory. He hesitantly muttered the name of some place and pointed to where it was. I begrudgingly told the girls. The girls smiled big smiles and excitedly lead the little boy off to eat what would probably be his second dinner of the night.

I quickly crossed to the other side of the street, but I could still hear the blond girls boasting about how they were ‘giving back’ to the Hondurans. “This will be our little secret,” one said to the other, “something that we can always feel good about.”They were saving the day, and were very, very proud of themselves.

I walked away as quickly as I could. I was almost hit by a truck. But I got away before I had to witness them continue their embarrassing charade.

If a kid in the tropics does not wear shoes it does not mean that he is a beggar. But the Americans wanted to feel good about themselves by taking a perfectly normal Honduran boy and turning him into a pariah. It seems as if they came to Honduras expecting to find a country of beggars, and they made sure that they found what they were looking for. Good work. By the standards of Western culture, a young boy walking around in the streets with unwashed clothing and bare feet may be considered an orphan beggar deserving of charity. In Honduras, the boy is just a young Honduran.

As another boy of the tropics is treated like a meager, belittled serf, two more self-riotous tourist can puff their plume and boast of their generosity. They flashed their cash in the face of a boy and showed him how poor he really was. Good work.

I have noticed something: a poor man often times does not know that he is poor, unless he is made to feel as such. Some of the happiest people that I have gotten to know in this world are also some of the least wealthy. In the jungles of Peru my friends had hardly a cent to boast of between them, but they smiled their days away drinking home made liquor and playing on the rivers. They were some of the richest and most generous people that I have ever met. But these two American tourist seemed to only be able to view disparity through the lens of their own culture, and they treated a normal brown skinned, bare footed Honduran kid as a squalid beggar.

I have worked for this past month with around 40 Honduran farmers. I have talked with them daily, visited their homes, and became their friend. They have little money, but they are not poor. They go to work with smiles on their faces, work hard, joke around, and then go home to their families with smiles still on their faces. They laugh at life through the week and then get drunk or play with their children on the weekend. They are very proud of their families, have enough to eat, and seem happy. They are rich beyond measure.

If only the workmen in the USA could be this fortunate.

I cannot comprehend how these happy people can be called poor.

Travel Photos from Honduras

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Copan Ruinas, Honduras
March 25, 2008

Vagabond Journey Newsletter 002

Vagabond Journey Newsletter 002

The second Vagabond Journey Newsletter has now been sent out to those who have subscribed to it. It contains links to the most pertinent posts on Song of the Open Road, links to photographs from Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, and Honduras, and the archaeology excavation at Copan, an interview with a Guatemalan refugee who is now a university professor in Costa Rica, and a descriptive guide to Playa Gorgona in Panama.

To subscribe to the Vagabond Journey monthly newsletter please submit your email address in the Topica box at the top left of this page or send a blank email to

To read the newsletters online please go to Vagabond Journey Newsletter 002

Copan Ruinas Travel Guide and Map

Copan Ruinas Travel Guide

I have put up a cheap travel guide to the village of Copan Ruinas on Vagabond Fieldnotes.com. It contains information on where to find a cheap restaurants and cheap accommodation outside of the tourist milieu, as well as a map of where these places are located. Copan Ruinas can be a little expensive, but the Vagabond Travel Guide to Copan suggests ways to work around these prices. Read it if you would like at, Vagabond Fieldnotes Copan Ruinas Travel Guide.

Thanks,

Wade

Map of Copan Ruinas Cheap Restaurants and Places to Sleep:

Click on the above map to make it bigger then print it to navigate the cheap restaurants of Copan Ruinas

Javanese Proverb

Javanese Proverb

“If you start off north, go north, don’t turn east, west, or south.”
-Javanese Proverb

I read this proverb from Java a few days ago and have not been able to shake it since.

To take one single direction to fruition has never been my fancy. But the thought of it, has gotten my wheels a spinning. It is a simply philosophy, and one that I can learn a few lessons from.

I have always held a certain fondness for starting off in one direction just to splinter off in another, and then another and then another, until my route of travel (or life for that matter) begins to resemble the colorful messes that elementary students call art. I have never really liked nice looking anythings, and fluid paths have never appealed to me. I think that I have made a career of dabbling - dabbling in professions, dabbling in lines of study, dabbling in curiosities. I think I am an incorrigible dabbler.

Though one who gets quite lost in his dabblings.

My path of travel has always been made up of starts and stops that go everywhere with shear signs of nonsense - and anywhere but where they where planed to go. As Andy says, “A plan is just something I do until I come up with a better idea.” I like doing things like this. I like whims. I like going north only to realize that I would rather go east, or west, or west then east then north again. I like just going to where ever my feet take me. But this Jananese proverb puts an idea into my head.

Hmm, maybe it would be fun to start off in one direction and keep going. . . Just keep on going until I have circled the globe. Maybe it would be enticing to travel towards a DIRECTION, rather than towards places. Who cares about places anyway? I don’t care much about places. The pursuit of a great path could perhaps be a far nobler pursuit than the pursuit of any great destination.

I do not believe that Richard Burton cared a darn for finding any source of the Nile or any other such place that he said he was looking for. I do not believe that he cared too much for destinations. I think he just went to Mecca for the fun of it. He went to war for kicks. It is my impression that he walked through Somalialand and got a javelin plunged through his face for the joy of the journey. I think that Richard Burton was a man who chased curiosity. He took off and kept going. I am not sure if he ever looked back. I have found a new infatuation in that bearded javelin eating explorer of humanity.

I think that there can be no end to a curiosity.

The same can be said for directions: they just keep going.

Pick a place, and you run the danger of arriving. Pick a direction and you can keep going into infinitum. Pick a curiosity and you will be lost for life.

I like the sounds of this.

I already know that I have no care for where I stand. I don’t want to stand, anyway. I want to run and keep running. Peak into a corner, peak into another, peer through the solicitous peep-hole of the world just to find out who is standing stark naked on the other side.

I have tried to stand before, though. I worked hard in university studying Chinese and Asiatic anthropology. I sat for a long time in a stiff backed chair - pretending that I was some breed of rag-tag scholar perhaps - but one day I just lost passion for any semblance of it. I realized that I simply did not care. I did not believe in the words that I was writing. I knew that it was all fairytales. In a flood, I also realized that I could not waste away another beautiful day writing some checked and balanced nonsense research paper that would be so boring that not even my poor mother could suffer through it. I did my time, I wrote thousands of such pages. But all it taught me was that the scholar killed the story teller.

I just want to tell stories.

East is now my direction.

The old time travelers always moved to the east: towards the ever beaconing morning light. East East East. East is where Europe is, the Middle East, then the Far East. To move east is to go in an even progression across the earth - with the landscape ever becoming more and more “Eastern” the further you travel. To view the world as an ongoing progression, I think that east is direction that must be traveled. East through Europe, East through Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, east to Pakistan (somehow), east through Nepal, India, Bangladesh, SE Asia, Malaysia, all the way to Java - say thank you for the proverb - and then to Japan, until I cannot go east no more

East is the direction that I choose. North you run into icebergs, south you run into icebergs, go west and you eat the desert of your travels before the dinner. Go east and you get the full course meal of planet earth.

Going East.

With Javanese proverbs in mind.

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Copan Ruinas, Honduras
March 24, 2008

Easter in Honduras

Easter in Honduras

Today is Easter. I awoke well rested at nine AM - a little later than I usual begin to stir, but I did not feel lazy. I looked out the window. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and I debated about whether or not I wanted to go to church or just walk around all day over the trails and rivers of the larger church. I like traditions. I went to church.

It is funny to me how those who study culture have the uncanny ability to find sustenance in all traditions but their own. I chided my Guatemalan archaeologist friend about this the night before after he contorted his face into an exaggerated grimace when I asked him if he was going to church on Easter. I laughed at the thought that I may now be approaching my own culture and my family’s religion as an outsider. I now find myself going to church in the same way as I go to Buddhist temples - curious and wide-eyed with wonder. I think that I have become a perpetual visitor. But I walked to the church this Easter with a touch of excitement and gusto that was not evident when I was a child. Yes, I am beginning to find the vestiges of my own background interesting, although my gaze is now cast from afar - from the other side of the river, perhaps. I think that my resolution is better from this distance.

Photo of the Catholic church of Copan Ruinas.

The Catholic church in Copan Ruinas looks over the central plaza, and is the heart of this little town. On this Easter Sunday, and every other one for that matter, the church was filled to capacity. Bold faced campensinos with big white cowboy hats in their laps crowded in on the wood work benches next to young girls dolled up in their Sunday bests. Mature hefty women wearing stentorian church faces sat eave to eave with bald headed weeny men with starched bright camisas that were buttoned tightly around their necks. Hanging on the inner walls of the church were the late comers who did not occupy a seat and had to stand, as they participated in the worship that would probably last for this entire day. For the Catholic Church in Honduras is nothing, if not fastidious in its ceremonies.

It was with this last group, tucked in against the walls, that Mira and I took up our residence. But as I watched the priest, who was a bulk of a man with a greasy mullet and well groomed goatee, I could not help but to continue looking out of the large doorway behind me. The sky was still blue. The hills just beyond the town were sparkling bright. They were beaconing to me. I knew it. I tried to understand the words of the sermon, but my attention was on the hills beyond. When I finally gave in to my mountain calling urges, I could not help my feet for their rapid movement towards the fresh air of the beautiful Easter day. Out the door I went. I decided that I would rather go to the church of the mountains and rivers and run out this Easter with a big smile on my face. This was an Easter celebration, mind you.

So Mira and I walked down a wide, paved highway that lead through the hills. There was not much traffic today and the breeze blew the blazes of the hot tropical sun right by us. The weather, today, was for the humans. We walked on through this beautiful day, looking far out over the mountainous horizon. I love the mountains. I love far stretching Horizons and chasing them as well. .

Photo of the mountains of Honduras.

We walked on and on until we reached a nice place to call our journey ‘half-way’ and began tramping back into town the way we had come. Just as we were looking over the wares of an un-staffed Mayan stone carving replica workshop, we were hallloooed and whistled at from a house across the highway. We turned with a start to find one of the excavators from the archaeology excavation waving and grinning big in out direction. We smiled, waved, and ran across the road to greet our friend.

The other workers call him Toro - the bull - and he is the funny man of the crew. He actually sort of looks like a bull. He introduced us to his children, and I was rather surprised to find how attractive they were. I chalked this up to the fact that they must have a really beautiful mother, for Toro was not over-flowing with manly beauty. But he was a good spirited, humorous man, and he keeps anyone who can understand his campesino Spanish rolling in laughter all day long. Neither Mira nor I can always follow his words, but just watching Toro as the jokes pour out of his half toothless mouth is enough to keep us in stitches. Then he picks on us. But, alas, the man who has the propensity to laugh at a joke must also be able to calmly bear witness to occasionally becoming the joke. I do not have a problem with being laughed at, if it means that I can laugh good-heartedly when Toro turns his humor upon the rather stiff and timid Japanese men who are the directors of the archaeology project. At the mere mention of these men he begins walking around the site with lowered eyes while bowing profusely in his never over-worn theatrical pantomime of the Japanese temperament. I must say, as someone who has tramped much in Japan, that his performances are not far from the truth.

No, Mario is not the only one who gets picked on at Copan.

After visiting the home of Toro, Mira and I walked lazily back into town, bought skewered meat tacos for $.80 each, and went home to nap. It was a good day to nap.

Tomorrow is work.

Back to the grindstone.

Photographs from Honduras

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Copan Ruinas, Honduras
March 23, 200

New Niece of Vagabond Journey

New Niece of Vagabond Journey

My sister pumped out her second child a few days ago. Wade from Song of the Open Road has been made an uncle for the second time. Now I have to make a visit back to the USA to check out this new pile of stuff that will someday grow into a real human. As I figure that I am going to have to travel through the JFK porthole to get back to the Old World anyway, a visit to Rochester will not be too far out of my way. I like visiting my family, and would like two weeks to study and re-provision for the coming journey (I want to pick up some books hehehe). There are a lot of new little kids in my family and a visit is akin to going to an everyday, all over the place playground. I sneak the kids candy and let them dig through all of the odd things in my room. They yell scream and I teach them how to play hockey.

It is nice to make regular visits home. I want to keep myself in the family circle; I do not wish to voluntarily ostracize myself by never being home. Ten days home in January, two weeks home in May is a good way to travel.

I like it when the USA airline hubs are in my path.

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Copan Ruinas, Honduras
March 23, 2008

Cheap Travel in Tourist Destinations

Cheap Travel in Tourist Destinations

I am currently a content traveler in Copan Ruinas. Even though this is a tourist town, and the general prices are very high, I have found ways to subvert the hand of gentrification and live cheaply. I have found good priced places to eat, a cheap bed, and free recreation. I am spending far under $10 a day.

Daily expenses:

Bed- $1.75
Breakfast- $1.50
Lunch- $1.70
Dinner- $2.00
Internet- $.80
Random expense- $1

Daily total- $7.75
Weekly total- somewhat less than $56

This total would be way higher if I utilized the tourist resources that line the main streets of this town. If I were to eat in the tourist restaurants - all the restaurants in the town center - I would be dropping at least three to six dollars per meal. It took me nearly a week to locate two local eating houses on the outskirts of town, where I can get a cheap meal for a dollar or two. I also usually prepare for myself one meal a day, which consists of fruit, vegetables, and peanut butter or muesli. It all, my food expenditures round out to the averages above. As I am working here for a month, I have taken up residence in an apartment rather than a hotel. This has saved me a big chunk of money, as the cheapest hostel bed in this town goes for $4 a night.

It was a bit of a chore to find a place to eat in Copan Ruinas. All of the many restaurants that line the cobblestone streets of the downtown area are priced far beyond what I can afford. But I have learned that on the outskirts of most every established tourist town are places where the locals eat cheaply. It took some time of walking and asking people - of keeping my eyes open and my ear to the ground - to find the two cheap restaurants that I have been eating at. One of these eating houses does not even have a sign or anything advertising it as a restaurant. For more information on where to eat cheaply in Copan please go to Vagabond Fieldnotes Copan (will post tomorrow!).

I am satisfied, well-fed, and smiling. Semana Santa is almost over, I suppose I did not go to El Salvador. I looked at a map to realize that I would have to travel 60km in the wrong direction just to get to a place where I could catch a bus to the border. Travel during Semana Santa can also be a little crowded. The buses stopped running on Wednesday and will be packed to their fullest capacity during the weekend, as people are returning home from the holiday. Giving this, I did not wake up any morning this week with a taste for the journey. I would have only been in El Salvador for a few days anyway. Maybe next time. I am content in Copan. Sometimes just walking around relaxing is just as interesting as traveling like a mad-man. I think I just wanted to go to El Salvador to say that I have been there anyway. Three days is not justice to any country on this globe. I would rather take my time, than run with my head down.

The Good Friday celebration here in Honduras was interesting anyway. I kind of just liked walking around lazily, writing a few lines here and there, and leisurely snacking on muesli throughout the day. There were festivities, and lots to write about.

This was a good week. Nothing to do, but whatever I wanted.

I have to return to work on Monday for another week. I am ready to get a moving. Andy is coming south to Guatemala and I am going north as soon as my rent expires at the end of the month.

The plan is to meet somewhere in the middle.

A world wide cat and mouse chase may soon come to fruition. I may soon meet the Hobo Traveler.

Photographs from Honduras

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Copan Ruinas, Honduras
March 22, 2008

Good Friday in Honduras

Good Friday in Honduras

A large procession of pious Hondurans, curious tourists, and men haphazardly dressed up in impromptu biblical getup moved through the cobble stone streets of Copan Ruinas today. They clogged the thoroughfares of the town with celebration and good cheer. For it is Good Friday across the Christian world, and the Stations of the Cross are remembered and honored with words of remembrance, faith, and . . . politics?

I find it truly amazing how Latin Americans can somehow manage to inveigle and interweave political rants into every aspect of life, conversation, and, yes, even worship.
Street art for the Easter celebration in Copan Ruinas. The above was made from colored sawdust and white rice. The people who made it worked all night long so that nobody would try to walk through their creation.

As I watched the procession, I became nostalgic for the days of my youth when my mother would suit me up in uncomfortable ‘church clothes,’ warn be to be on my best behavior, and, as added incentive I am sure, fastened the top button of my shirt so that I was slightly choked. But once this chastening suit was fought over me - I, being a child of normal temperament, would of course try to reject these uncomfortable clothes - I became resigned to the day, and even began to enjoy it. I also knew that the Easter Bunny would be coming soon, and I was sure to be a good child on this holiest of holidays. I wanted my chocolate.

I remembered that the Easter season near the Great Lakes was always cloudy and wet. But there was something about this brisk air that I loved. I walked to church hand in hand with my little sister, who was probably still teary-eyed from having also just survived another outfitting of ‘church clothes,’ and I quickly forgot the tightly fastened top button of my starched and ironed new shirt. At this point, I probably thought that I looked good, and wanted all of the other little church girls to notice me.
This is how this street was decorated for the Copan Ruinas Easter celebration. They just poured on the different colors and then watered them down to get it all to stick together.

This Good Friday in Honduras was also cloudy and brisk. I was reminded of scenes of my youth as I watched a wig-wearing Jesus bear a big plastic cross with a crown of sticks about his head. I stood watch, trying hard to figure out what station of the cross was being acted out. The ‘Roman Soldiers’ had just handed Jesus the cross and were pointing and laughing at him in ignorant mockery. I remembered this scene well, as it was carved upon the walls of my hometown church in Upstate NY - as well as into my childhood repository of memories. But my Sunday school education failed me, and I gave way to listening to the woman who was speaking resolutely into a microphone. I thought that her words would bring back to memory all of the stories that I have heard in my childhood about Good Friday, Jesus, and the Easter season. But they did not.

Her words were not about the Stations of the Cross, or even of Jesus and his followers. In fact, what she was saying did not have anything that had to do with this holy Christian holiday. The troupe of men who were dressed up as characters from the Bible, the pall-bearers carry multiple statues of Mother Mary, and some guy in his underwear (I am not sure how he fit into the story) stood in the streets enduring a sermon about nothing other than politics. The connection between politics and Good Friday escapes me. I do not think that Jesus, on his arduous walk with his cross, was subjected to such an incredulous lecture. Were he, then maybe he would have abandoned his cross for good on the shoulders of that helpful fellow who shared his burden and beat it on over to Kashmir (like the Kashmiris say he did).

The Easter procession that wound through the streets of Copan Ruinas, Honduras.

In the sermon that followed, the USA was condemned, foreigners were condemned, and fast-food was condemned. Not even sunglasses could sneak away from the chopping block without being condemned. The crowd listened to a sermon about how fast-food, American products, and foreign music are all bad, as they stood there munching away on what appeared to be Chips-Ahoy cookies and drinking what I could only conceive as being Coca-Cola and Sprite. Certainly, I must have been deceived by theses item’s shear likenesses to ‘American products.’ Surely, a crowd that was so against the USA would not dare bear public witness to the fact that they consume, and enjoy, the handiworks of such a condemnable culture.

But we listened as the Coca-Cola quenched multitude was urged on to not, in any form, support the USA. That is fine with me. But I don’t understand why they stopped there with such a superficial offing of American influence. Why not keep this going and stop using the automobile, throw away the computers, cancel all internet subscriptions, dig up the television cables, throw the cell-phones into a public burning pile, close down the airports, and remove every vestige of US influence past and present. And, in the process, knock Honduras right back into the stick and stone-age?

This sounds good to me. I kind of like where this is going.

But alas, it seems as if the same people who stood on this Good Friday afternoon condemning the globalized world, cannot let go of its goodies. I do not really believe that anybody here will be the one to cast the first stone. Even as a be-costumed Jesus watches on. From all outward appearances, the people here seem to like Coca-Cola. Why would they want to stop drinking something that tastes good? They also seem to like cellular telephones and American movies. I was momentarily excited by these anti-USA propositions, as I too would like to do away with US global influence. Why would I want to travel the world to only experience stale recreations of my own culture? I don’t even like American movies in America, I certainly do not want to watch them while abroad. I also really do not like Coca-Cola. But it seems as if the very culture that people are so quick to condemn is the one that they want the most.



The speaker then continued to attack the USA, because, she said, that they do not given away enough money to Honduras. At this point, I could not fathom why someone would expect money from that which they say is condemnable. But oh well. I looked at Jesus, standing in the middle of the crowd, cross bearing and be-robed. He seemed bored. So, too, was I. So I walked away to a place where I, as a wicked foreigner whose money is daily falling into the pockets of Hondurans, would not be condemned. I went home. Maybe I would have hitched up with Jesus and took the long road to Kashmir if I could have thought up a way to break him out of the readily condemning mob. I once read that in Christian art Jesus has to appear as if he had suffered more than his followers. I think today it was my responsibility to leave the poor reenacted Jesus to bear the suffering of a drawn-out, humor lacking, Latin-American political lecture.

Maybe next time we will make a break for the hills of Kashmir together, where, I am sure, I could think about Jesus, Good Friday, the Easter season, and put my thoughts towards trying to remember the order of those elusive Stations of the Cross.

I would go to church tonight, but I fear another sermon.

I think that I want to eat ice-cream today.

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Copan Ruinas,
Honduras March 21, 2008

On the right hand side of this picture is the man in his underpants. I do not remember him from the Bible stories that my father once read to me hehehe.

Cockfight in Honduras Video

Cockfight in Honduras Video

The following is a video of the cockfight that I wrote about in the, At the Cockfight post. The ritual of the cockfight seems to be the same the world over. From the sucking of the rooster's head by the handler to the rules of the fight the cockfight to the symbolism, the cockfight seems to be very similar from Bali to Honduras. I have been reading my Clifford Geertz hehehe.

Cockfight video:



Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Copan Ruinas, Honduras
March 20, 2008

The Romance of Traveling

The Romance of Traveling

“Once the traveler found civilizations radically different from his own awaiting him at the end of his journey. Now he finds impoverished imitations of his own, set off here and there by the relics of a discarded past.”
-Clifford Geertz, The Cerebral Savage: On the Work of Claude Levi-Strauss

When I speak of the romance of traveling I am more speaking about the cerebral voyages of dreaming into maps, thinking of lands long gone, talking of uncharted lands, and planning journeys just for the fun of doing it. When I talk of the romance of traveling I think of the story of the two monks who would everyday talk about the journey that they were going to take together the following year. They would plan, write packing lists, and itineraries, but they both knew that these travels would never come to fruition; that they would only travel on together over mountain and sea in their imaginations alone. This dreaming, this joy, this excitement is what I mean by romance.

Tramping down long dusty roads, thirsty, sunburned, and tired in the height of a tropical summer is anything but romantic. I know. But the yarns of these voyages that spill across night-time table tops and mugs of tea makes them seem as romantic as any paradise. I hear of forsaken lands and I have the automatic urge to go there. Tell me a place is the hottest, coldest, driest, ugliest, most incorrigible and I will be sure to dream of it daily. Tell me a place is easy living paradise, and I will shun it with a scoff of my boot. Perhaps raw experience, being pushed to the extreme, is what I mean by romance.

I read of past voyages through harsh terrain and territory which are written up in the travel annals of old. These journeys always seem exciting and romantic. But I know that they often time sucked in the doing. I know that it sucked for Harry Franck to tramp through the Siamese jungle without water or food. I know it sucked when he had to fight the natives with his fist for a few handfuls of rice. But in the writing of this tale, this all seemed so very romantic. I too, want to walk through jungles unprepared but ready for anything. I know that it will suck. But when I think of the tale, when the story is written - when the hunger pangs are gone, when there is plenty of water to drink, when the scars have healed - this journey will be pure romance. Memory is a selective fellow, always remembering only the aspect of the journey that are enjoyable, rich, and full of beauty. When I think of past travels, I can hardly recollect any of the hardships, rather I am able to simply reveal in the romance of hard road. If memory did not work in this way, I don’t think that anyone would travel more than once. I think that in retrospect, after you have made it through the deluge, is when the passion for the road traveled over kicks in. Perhaps romance is the property of traveler’s tales.

I think now of planning for traveling, of gazing into a map for hours on end, of thinking of where I will go and the adventures that I will find when I get there. I know well that half of the exciting scenarios that I dream up will not happen, but I dream none the less. Because I like dreaming. Like those two monks, part of the excitement of the day was found in mentally wandering over the globe. Why? Because they thought it fun. I do too. Perhaps dreaming of endless mountains is what I mean by romance.

But sometimes I stop short, look around, realize that the sky is blue and there are big fluffy clouds hanging out with no place to go. I find that the sun is shining, and the roosters are crowing, some teenage kid is listening to pop music, and the dogs are frolicking in and out of playful leaps and bounds. I feel energetic and head out into the hills. I take a deep breath and look all around me, and I know that romance is always, and forever will be, right here. Whether I realize it in the moment or not, these days are always full of beauty. Maybe I chuckle a little, as I know that, even though it sometimes cannot be appreciated in the moment, that what I mean by romance is always here right now in front of me.

It seems to me that the days in which my clothes are a little too dirty, when the sun is a little too hot, when the beggars are a little too aggressive, when the people are a little too dishonest, when the buses are a little too full, when the hotels are a little too expensive, and when the roads are a little too long are the days that I will look back upon only to remember the humor and romance of it all.

The grit of the Road cannot pass into memory.

“Adventure only happens when things go wrong.”

This is what I mean by romance.

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Copan Ruinas, Honduras
March 19, 2008

Travel Guidebooks: To Use or not to Use- Travel Tip #8

Travel Guidebooks: To use or not to use- Travel Tip #8

Guidebooks, guidebooks, guidebooks, a big question. Should a traveler use them? Are they really helpful? Are they worth their weight and cost? Is traveling more enjoyable without them? Can I travel without one?

This long rant and more in this travel tip. Be sure to leave your comments and opinions below These are only my impressions. Tell me what you think.

The Cons of Using a Travel Guidebook:

Travel guidebooks tend to be big, heavy, expensive, incorrect, out of date by the time they are published, often times not well researched to begin with, and they make you look like a ripe idiot every time you use it within sight of other people. What is more, is that you can travel the world without one. They are not necessities.

A guidebook is a clear cut sign that you have no idea where you are. I think most travelers feel a little bashful about digging out their guidebooks in a street full of people. It is a flashing sign that you have no bearings on your current landscape. I recently met a Norwegian traveler in Panama City who taped up the cover of his Central America on a Shoestring with a think coat of white medical tape because he was embarrassed of it. He did not want people to know that the book he was coddling reverentially, was, in fact, a guidebook.

Guidebooks also have another major disadvantage to the traveler: they guide you. As much as you want to travel your own path, if you use a guidebook, you will often times find yourself moving very near to most other travelers. This is alright if you want to speak your native language for a few nights or make some traveling friends, or just want to relax and let the book tell you everything you need to know. But it is also a drawback if you really want to interact with the people of the country that you are traveling through. Guidebooks pave the road for tourism, and tourism means that I become Money rather than human. Guidebooks keep you on this trail, as they seem to imply the message that they ‘have the country covered’ and that their listings of places to go are to be chosen from like food on a menu.

It is sometimes difficult to leave the realm of the guidebook. Well, if you carry one. They could often times be better used as guide to tell you where NOT TO GO rather than help to travel to where you want. If a place is in that guidebook, you may want to avoid it!

Another disadvantage to these books is that they essentially act as advertising services, even if the publishers deny the claim, as travelers tend to gravitate to the places that are mentioned in the guides. Therefore, a listing in a guidebook is the best advertisement that a hotel or restaurant owner can have, even if they are not worthy of the privilege. This often times has the impact of driving up the prices of the places that are recommended by the major guidebooks. If a hotel is advertized as being cheap, by the time you get there it may not be.

One of my major problems with popular travel guides is that they are saturated with useless information. 70% of the bulk of most guides are full of information about shopping, nightlife, mid and upper class hotels restaurants, and other nonsense that I could never use. Why would I want to carry around junk that I can’t use? Why do I want a book that is 70% useless.
My final complaint is that the popular travel guides seem to be living off of their reputations and lack of competition alone. I believe that this is to the point that their quality has greatly diminished. Guidebooks are all too often wrong. The people who wrote them can not be trusted. Sometimes I truly believe that their margin of error is blatant negligence.

But oh well. What can I do? Shut my mouth and make my own travel guidebook? I know not of a more lamentable fate hahaha. Who would want to do that? But finances being what they are, I may have to one day put my nose to the grindstone and find out for myself if a good travel guide is a possibility.

The Pros to Using a Guidebook:

Given all of these drawbacks, when I ask myself the question: “Should I purchase another big, nearly useless, heavy, expensive, price-raising, incorrect guidebook,” my response is usually without much conviction. But for all their drawbacks, guidebooks do occasionally come in handy. And if you can get one for free they can sometimes be good tools. Get one for free???. . . hmm .. . maybe that hostel has a few that were left behind by past travelers??????

I think that the travel guidebook is a really good idea: they have maps, they have immigration information, advice on how to get to other places from where you are, and they also suggest areas of town where you can find a cheap bed and meal. In their ideal form, they are suppose to be nothing other than traveler tracks left for other travelers. I like the ideal of this.

Another great aspect of a guidebook is that, deep down inside of them buried somewhere, they have information to help travelers travel. This sounds very base, but sometimes it is a little difficult to find local people who can really tell you how to get from point A to point B if the distance is beyond their realm of knowledge, or where the cheap hotels are. Guidebooks are also helpful in big cities.

The travel guidebook is also not a new concept. On his monumental Vagabond Journey Around the World, which took place over a hundred years ago, Harry Franck makes references to using guidebooks for some the regions that he traveled through. I also once read somewhere that the Footprint Central America and Mexico guidebook is a descendant of an edition that had its advent in the 19th century. So the travel guidebook is nothing new, people have found them useful for a long time.

If guidebooks were really set up for the traveler rather than the tourist - or “tourists with backpacks” as Andy calls them - I would use them without a hitch. But they are generally not written for people who travel with little money. As the guidebook companies seem to be far more concerned with people who travel to shop and go on tours. I cannot blame them, these are the people with money. So if I do happen to use a guide, I do so with the fact in mind that they are published to be sold, and to sell other things. I know that I must read them and take their information selectively. I know that I cannot trust the information in the guides, and that there are usually cheaper and better alternatives to what is published.

Another great advantage of carrying a guidebook is that they allow you to feel as if you are a little more prepared. They have maps in them that would be difficult to obtain in other ways, they have the addresses of hotels in case you arrive in a city at night and want to take a taxi, and they have information that allows you to orient yourself to your surroundings. Just knowing this, the travel guidebook can help you navigate the world with a little more confidence and in a little more comfort.

I know that if I allow a guidebook to just be a little helper on my journeys then they really do come in handy. But I do not wish to be ruled by them. If I used them only when I have exhausted other methods of obtaining information then they serve as a real good backup device. But I do not like planning my journeys around them. If I can come upon one for free, then pride will be my only barrier to using it.

The best part of having a guidebook is that it is a sure thing guide of where NOT TO TRAVEL.

Do I need a Guidebook?

So when I am pondering if I want to pick up a guide or not I keep the following questions in mind:

1. Can I communicate in the dominant language of the countries that I am to travel in? The ability to ask and understand directions is clutch to removing the need of a guidebook.

2. Have I traveled in this region before? Previous travel experience is an obvious factor in choosing to carry a guidebook.

3. How easy do I think traveling is in the region where I intend to go? Am I going to Western Europe where the traveling is relatively straight forward or Central Africa, where the going is a little more complicated and the assistance of the information in a guidebook could be of a little more use (or not)?

4. Do I have, or can I obtain, good maps for the regions that I intend to travel through? A good road map and supplemental city maps can be a good substitute or accompaniment to a guidebook.

5. Do I have time to do a little preliminary research? Do I have a month of down time before I travel to a region, or am I always on the road at the expense of internet cafes? If you have a solid, cheap internet connection with a printer, the need for a guidebook becomes a little more obsolete.

If I can answer ‘yes’ to most of these questions, then I usually will not use a guidebook, unless I just happen to come upon one. But if I plan on an extended run of travel in a country where I cannot speak the local language and English, Spanish, or Chinese is not a usable option then I may consider obtaining a Lonely Planet Shoestring guide if one is easily available.

Lonely Planet Shoestring Guides:

For the most part, the only popular guidebooks that I can really recommend are the Lonely Planet Shoestring edition. They make no pretense at fully covering countries, and are basically just rough sketches of the regions they cover. I think this is good. They come in handy where they are needed most- in big cities - and they seem to keep quiet about everywhere else. Even though I think that they are not as good as they could be, and in actuality, I am unsure if they are worth their $30 price tag, I find them far better than the rest of the guidebooks out there. Regular Lonely Planet guides are so full of useless information about shopping and upper class nonsense that the quality information for the back-packer or traveler is severely diluted, if not non-existent. Regular LPs are pretty bad, and Rough Guides, Footprints, and Lets Gos are far worse in my opinion.

There is definitely a big market open for someone to make a good, make sense, guidebook.

To Remember:

The following are some ideas that I have found useful to keep in mind while traveling.

1. Guidebooks are often researched and written by people who have money, rental cars, and are living far beyond my budget. It seems to me that a person who is able to travel without much economic restraint is probably not going to put up with the hardships of finding the cheapest and best traveler options. They probably will not even know of them. So there are many more cheaper hotels and restaurants than what are represented in the books. I think that guidebooks are written by people who genuinely wish to share quality travel information, but, I suspect, that they can not be considered in the same economic league as most travelers.

2. Use a guidebook as something that helps you travel rather than something that tells you what to do. The information in a guidebook is just what the researcher happened to come upon; there are usually way more other options. Allow a guidebook to help you to find a cheap part of a city, in which you can select your own options, rather than lead you to the doorstep of any particular hotel or restaurant. If I use a guide, I just consult it when it is needed (as I know that all too often it is wrong).

3. Talk to people. Listen